″Make a Xerox and tack it up on your cube.″

″C′mon. This could screw up your case against Antoine Hurley real bad, couldn′t it? The defense could have a field day with the fact that Jana′s heart valve was stolen while the county had custody of her body. It won′t exactly take a Dream Team to make that argument.″

″Since when did you become the spokesman for the defense of Antoine Hurley?″

″For the defense? Luke, Jana′s family told me about her missing heart valve. Her brother, Belmont Miller, is the only spokesman I know about today. But for Jana, not for Antoine Hurley.″

When Luke stayed silent, I went for blood. ″And while we′re discussing Jana, Luke, what′s your reaction to the new independent lab evidence about the bullet that killed her?″ I asked. ″That the bullet came from outside the car. And if that turns out to be true, then Antoine couldn′t have been the shooter the way you′ve been saying. ″

″Kate.″ Luke′s voice was venomous. ″I said, ′No comment.′ What word did you not understand? No comment. No how, no way.″

I didn′t have a chance to come back after that, because Luke hung up.

That went pretty well, I thought, slumping back in my chair. Luke was saying that by showing Antoine′s side of the story, I was trampling on the prosecution′s side of the case.

When it came to identifying Jana′s murderer, I only hoped I wasn′t in danger of trampling on the truth.

Chapter 32

As if I didn′t have enough on my plate, Beatty chose that exact moment to bug me about my weight-loss series.

″How are your fat stories coming along?″ He′d rematerialized at my cubicle.

″Fine,″ I lied. In fact, Frank and I had finished taping only the first segment of the weight-loss series, the Skinny Wrap story. We had four parts left to do.

″Good, because I want to move your series up on the schedule,″ he said. ″We need to run the first two installments next week.″

Next week? Yikes. I was supposed to have three more weeks to work on it.

″Okay, but I′ve got a lot of breaking stuff I′m following right now,″ I said. ″I just got an update about the Jana Miller carjacking.″

Beatty waved off my objection. ″Give your carjacking updates to someone else if you don′t have time to handle everything,″ he said. ″I need to get your series on the air ASAP. It′s going to run instead of Lainey′s series on homeless dumping.″

At the mention of Lainey, my ears pricked up like a terrier puppy′s.

″Why the switch?″ I asked him. ″What′s wrong with her series?″

″It needs more reporting. Meanwhile, Marketing is screaming bloody murder down my back because we need something else pronto to promote for next week. We got squat right now.″

Needs more reporting. That meant that Lainey had screwed the pooch on her stories, newswise. There was no time for me to do a victory dance, however, because I was woefully behind in completing my own series. Plus I was anxious to check into the report I′d heard from Jana′s brother about how her body had been mishandled. That was a major scandal brewing in the medical examiner′s office.

I gave Beatty a wild, hopeful look. ″Maybe I could finish Lainey′s homeless series for her. I could turn that one around really fast,″ I suggested. ″I′ve already got solid sources for it.″

Give me anything, God, but having to work on more fat rip-off stories. I sent up a little prayer.

Beatty lowered his aviators on his nose to peer at me. ″Does that mean your series is ready to go right this second? Fine. Where′s the disk?″

″I′m tweaking it.″

″You′re tweaking it. And I′m the wizard of friggin′ Oz.″

Beatty started to turn away. Then he snapped back around, his favorite method for catching reporters off guard. The Beatty Brows were working in hypermotion. If the rest of us were lucky, one of these days his eyebrows would sprout wings and fly away with his face.

″Are you positive you′ll be ready with your first two installments by next week, Gallagher?″ he demanded to know. ″Because I need to review both of them by this Thursday. That′s three days from now. That′s a drop-dead date, by the way.″

″You′ll have both stories in your hands by this Thursday, Beatty. Don′t worry-it′s under control. ″

Yup. My fat-scam series was under control. Like everything else in my life these days, the series was about as under control as a plane that was nosing over into a death spiral.

Chapter 33

I had an interview scheduled for Tuesday morning with Evelyn′s plastic surgeon, the much ballyhooed Dr. Medina. I was going to test the ″thermal-laser thingee″ that Evelyn and the Newbodies group had been raving about. The procedure was actually called thermal laser-lite, and it was supposed to melt away your fat and shrink your skin. My job was to tell viewers whether it in fact worked.

When I′d called to arrange the interview with Medina, I didn′t tell his scheduling assistant that there was a chance that the procedure might wind up on my list of fat scams. I actually hoped the wand worked, because I was going to be the guinea pig for a free round of laser lifting. Normally each treatment cost nearly a thousand dollars.

Off the record, I was hoping that I might even get Dr. Medina to talk a little bit about Jana, who′d been one of his patients. Jana had come straight from Dr. Medina′s office to our lunch on the day before she was killed. I was even hoping that I might get some insight from Dr. Medina about the latest twist in her case, the alleged theft of her internal organs. As a medical doctor who dealt with the human body′s largest organ-skin-Dr. Medina might have some background information that I could use.

Dr. Medina′s plastic surgery office was several tax brackets more luxe than any doctor′s office I′d ever seen before. The waiting room was centered by an enormous glass sculpture. Lit from within, the sculpture was formed in the shape of layered crystals and looked like something that might have been found in Superman′s secret cave.

As Frank and I hauled our loads of equipment into the waiting room, a woman behind the long white counter gave me a welcoming smile.

″Kate Gallagher?″

When I nodded, she clapped her hands together. ″Ooh, I′ll be so excited to tell my daughter I got to meet you,″ she said in an excited-sounding tone. ″Nadia is fourteen years old; she watches you on the news all the time. And so do I, by the way. I′m Michelle, Dr. Medina′s assistant.″

I felt completely disarmed. For some reason I′d been expecting Dr. Medina′s assistant to be incredibly young, or else a study in filler-and- lasered perfection. Michelle appeared to be about fifty years old, and she seemed refreshingly un-lifted.

My first stop was the photo room, where I stepped up on a stool, and another assistant, this one a very young and insecure-looking woman named June, struggled to take my ″before″ picture.

After she reshot the series of front, side, rear, and other-side photos, June started sweating.